Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set to roll into theaters tomorrow, and the anticipation is palpable. With the release of the second season of The Legend of Vox Machina and an announcement for an animated Mighty Nein series, fans of the legendary tabletop role-playing game have been eating well this year, and the imminent release of a live-action D&D blockbuster, which has nary a poor review in sight, is bound to be the cherry on top.
That’s not to say that strangers to D&D won’t have anything to enjoy here; many critics have lauded the film for its accessibility. At the end of the day, it’s the fans that are going to get the most mileage out this one, with everything from monsters to spells to locations seemingly ripped straight from the source material and injected with the rousing personality of Chris Pine and the rest of his co-stars.
Pine himself was a D&D newcomer prior to jumping on the Honor Among Thieves ship, and quickly fell in love with it, going as far as to say that the game has immense value in an educational setting. In an interview with SlashFilm, the star highlighted the game’s rich effect on the imagination, and how it encourages cooperation and problem-solving; all things that schools would be wise to pass on to their pupils.
“So for me, this idea that it’s like “geeky” or “nerdy” or whatever, the gospel of Dungeons & Dragons that I think is so important to know, why I think it should be played in schools, is that it immediately teaches cooperation. It exercises the imagination. It’s joyous, it’s improvisational. And within a matter of minutes, everybody’s on the same page. You’re not arguing about whether or not you’re cool or not. You’re arguing about whether or not you should have gone over the boulder to kill the dragon. I think it’s about the coolest thing I’ve encountered in a long time.”
Honor Among Thieves looks to be fairly educational in its own right. Specifically, writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have by all accounts taught filmmakers and moviegoers alike how to make a movie with an off-the-chain fun factor. And with Pine spearheading the adventure as a bard of all things, it seems we’re only right to expect the best when it releases to theaters tomorrow.
